


It's Loud Sometimes

by ToTillAGarden



Series: Davenport Week [4]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, davenport week, ooh both late and angsty~, thats classic me right there, the oculus is there too but relics arent characters i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-09 08:11:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12272385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToTillAGarden/pseuds/ToTillAGarden
Summary: When the Oculus reaches the Bureau of Balance, Lucretia fails to avoid the inevitable.





	It's Loud Sometimes

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, it's Davenport week day 4! 
> 
> The one I've been looking 4-ward (heh) to, if I didn't start this fic past midnight and not finish it until now, which is 3:30. At least I get to sleep in tomorrow.
> 
> The prompt was wordless/wrathful and I think I did both? Honestly that's up for debate if you ask me.
> 
> I kind of wish I got to spend more time with this, but with a full day of classes + a holiday + me having written like 10 fics about this already + the fact that I almost fell asleep while writing this like 20 times I didn't really have the time to invest all that I could have.  
> So maybe I'll come back and edit this! We'll see how it goes.
> 
> For now, though, I'll see you tomorrow! All the feedback I've been getting is super rad, so thanks for that AGAIN. <3

_Hey Davenport?_  
_I’m yours, little man, I belong to you, I can bring back everything you love, bring back your voice, I can do it right now, I can let you hear it!!!_  
The gnome shut the lead ball tighter, shaking his head, trying not to let the words get to him.  
_Davenport, ~~this is your voice, this is what you were and what you could be, you made me and~~ you deserve better, you deserve to be angry, ~~you should take it all back~~_

~

She didn’t want Davenport there for a reason.  
Yet ever since she recruited _~~her family~~_ the new Reclaimers, she found herself busier than ever; between preparations for Midsummer and everything else, there just wasn’t time for her to learn the illusion spell, but she could still have him avoid it. She’d send another guard to take the Oculus, and then Davenport could cast the spell, hand her the closed, post-illusion sphere; then all she had to do was wait until he left to open it, and he’d never have to see it.  
Never have to hear it.

And at first, when he handed the three their money with a smile, she thought it worked, that she had gotten _something_ right. But then they came into her private quarters and locked the door, and then Davenport handed her the orb with the Oculus inside, and she looked at him, and he seemed… Distressed, almost. Upset. She knew she set her hopes too high.  
He knew better than to listen to the relics - Lucretia had trained him well, and neither her staff or the gauntlet gave him problems - but he must have heard it, must have thought or heard or seen something that confirmed her not wanting him there, something that rekindled her guilt for not making time to learn the spell, something that could turn a good day into a bad one.  
So he handed her the orb and covered his ears, closed his eyes, shook his head and just muttered “No, no, no-”

_Man, you can go get on a boat and sail on the ocean ~~forever,~~ you can tell off every Bureau member who has ever laughed at you or you could ~~go to space and never come back,~~ I know what you want, it’s power and recognition but not glory and infamy, it’s a family you can always rely on ~~or a crew for your ship, I am yours and you are mine and I can give you it all, you made me, we are a part of each other,~~ you have every right to be angry_

She put the orb down and went over to him, and after a moment of hovering over him she gently wrapped her arms around his shaking body. “Davenport, are you-“  
“No, s-stop…”  
“It’s okay, Davenport, it’s me, it’s Lucretia, I -“  
“No, no, stop, stop it, _stop it, stop it now-“_  
The bubble Davenport suddenly cast around the room - a Silence spell - stopped her words, but after a moment, Davenport opened his eyes and looked up at her, and then he hugged her back, and he let himself cry. He let the tears flow down his face and he let her pick him up after a minute of it, and he let her carry him out of the room, out of the spell’s range. And she held him for a bit, but then when she switched into static like she always did to calm him down he jumped in shock and almost fell out of her arms, and at that moment she knew, she knew what had happened and she knew what it said to him, so she sat down and rocked him gently in her arms and just whispered “Shhhh,” until his heart stopped racing and his body stopped shaking.  
It was only later, after she re-cast Silence and he was calm, did she talk again. “You’re safe now, okay?”  
He nodded, and wiped the tears from his eyes. “L-Lucretia.”  
She smiled. “That is me, last time I checked.”  
But he shook his head with a frown.“I-it.” He thought about it, trying to make out the rest of the sentence. “The r-relic.”  
“It spoke to you, right?”  
He nodded.  
“Davenport, I am so sorry-“  
He shook his head. “N-not y-your fault.”  
_~~“You were always like this…~~ _but okay.” She laughed, and then it was quiet for a moment. “Oh, Davenport?”__  
He tilted his head a bit.  
“Do you remember what the relic told you?”  
He thought about that question about a minute. “Static. But. Bad s-static.”  
“Not like mine.”  
He shook his head. “N-n-not like Lu-lucretia.”  
She frowned in thought, but as soon as she was about to say anything Davenport spoke up again.  
“Lucretia?”  
“Yes?”  
“I-I-“  
She paused, letting him take a minute to finish his sentence.  
“Y-you said. N-not to. to listen.”  
“To the relics?”  
He nodded. “But. I-it’s loud.”  
“Hey, that’s okay.” Lucretia smiled softly. “It’s loud sometimes.”  
“O-okay.”  
They sat a little bit, in silence - he seemed deep in thought, and so did she - before Davenport spoke up again.  
“I-it said. I should be. I should be angry.” He took a breath. “Why?”

____

~ 

“Lucretia?” Davenport called her from the other room, as he did more often than not when he had trouble sleeping.  
She sighed, but then quickly masked her exhaustion with a smile. “Are you sure you’re ready to hear a story? It hasn’t been so long since this morning…”  
He smiled back - a genuine, confident one - and nodded. “S-story.”  
“Did I ever tell you about the time…. _~~where those big judge statues judged your sins? And they shot down the Starblaster and I - but you had no way to tell I was with it - and you thought that was it, that you had lost everyone. So you stood up and you talked about your right to get angry, and then you died anyway, but you did have the right. You put the responsibility for us all on your shoulders, and dedicated your whole life to that responsibility, and you thought that was going to waste because you weren’t careful. So the judges were right, you were mad at the circumstances, but I think you were also mad at yourself. And I know that when all of this is over, you’re going to be angry again, but it’ll be at me this time. And you’re going to remember this, and reclaim that right, and I’ll respect it because I have no other choice. But at least you’ll be angry at me, and not at you.~~_  
_~~At least you’ll have today to remember too, today when you questioned your anger even though the Oculus was right. You don’t know any better, and I can’t deny the truth of that, but there’s something about naiveté that’s powerful. Untouched. Maybe, just maybe, it’s a part of yourself both of us can learn from.”~~_

__

~ 

__

“Sleeping already?” She laughed. “I wish I could take that little time.” She flicked the nightlight off, and closed the door, and took one last look at her friend behind her. “Sweet dreams, Davenport." 

__

**Author's Note:**

> gOD there are so many italics and strikethroughs in this one, it's 4 am and I'm dooooone. Let me know if you catch any formatting mistakes!
> 
> If you're confused: this is based on a headcanon I adopted (I think from another fic?) a while back that the voice of a relic can sound like the voice of its owner - it doesn't fit so nicely in canon, but it fits SO nicely in angst I couldn't help but use it.  
> Plus, wondering how the Oculus would interact with Davenport was an interesting enough premise for me to want to try it!
> 
> Another headcanon you might be confused about if you haven't read my earlier fics - I feel like Davenport would get really good at hearing static over time, and so I feel like he'd start being able to distinguish between different types of static. Lucretia's are always soft and comforting, but he can tell whether she's singing or talking in a different language, for example; this is just more on the macro level.
> 
> Also, like that little static story I put in there?  
> A lot of you said you liked that part in Muscle Memory, so I treated you with the full version!  
> Not the happiest story - I think a lot of Lucretia's static stories would be more tragic - but important for her to tell nonetheless.


End file.
